About this project

DAEMON - Augmented Reality Game

$1,365

pledged of $1,248 goal

38

backers

Daemon is two things: it’s an innovative, cyberpunk themed Augmented Reality Live Action Role Play Game, and it’s a New Media experience. Daemon ends with a New Media Art gallery show of both local and collected talent from Glitch and New Media artists.

As a game - Daemon is a team shooter, with Augmented Reality elements rooted into the core of the gameplay. Players divide up into small squads, and using Nerf, or alternative foam blasters, work together with, or fight against NPCs and other player teams to complete mission objectives. The game is open to SCAD Students and Alumni only. However, we will be recording the entire thing using both traditional camera setups and GoPros, for our backers.

As a new media experience - Daemon is a celebration of technology, future, life, death, and art, that culminates with the art gallery show. The show is being headlined by local artist Jon Springs. We'll be opening up to submissions from the public. We are accepting submissions at submissions@daem.onl. The gallery show will be open to the public.

It is a complete experience. The event will last a total of three days, and will be taking place on SCAD Savannah campus in April 2016.

As we get closer to playing the game, we'll unveil the Rules, Rules Trailer, Play Zones, and Missions. You can sign up and find more information on our website daem.onl.

For helping us create DAEMON, we're offering unique rewards to our backers. Many of these will be crafted by Jon Springs himself, our resident glitch artist, and the headliner for the DAEMON Gallery Show. Jon specializes in glitch art using Video Synthesizers and CRT TVs. Here is some of his work. You can find more here: http://videotreasures.online/

The rewards we are offering are as follows. Keep in mind that we are based in the United States, and due to the unique nature of the rewards they may take some time to ship.

CREDITS:

We put your name in the credits of the DAEMON Documentary as having contributed to the Kickstarter.

WALLPAPER:

You will recieve a unique, backer-exclusive wallpaper set for the Kickstarter created by Jon.

GLITCH GIF SET:

You will receive a special, Backer-exclusive glitch gif set created by Jon Springs for this Kickstarter.

4 x 6 PRINT:

You will receive a special, Backer-exclusive 4 x 6in Print created by Jon Springs for this Kickstarter.

DOCUMENTARY DOWNLOAD:

We'll also be making a documentary for DAEMON that documents both the experience of playing the game, and some of the behind-the-scenes work of running it. While it'll be online for free for anyone to watch, we'll send you a DRM-free file for you to download and own.

PLAYER PACK:

You will receive a DAEMON Bandana identical to the ones used by DAEMON players, as well as player currency and each of the weapon licenses.

11 x 17 PRINT:

You will receive a special, Backer-exclusive 11 x 17in Print created by Jon Springs for this Kickstarter.

DOCUMENTARY DVD:

You will receive a special, Backer-exclusive DVD of the Daemon Documentary.

GLITCH VHS TAPE:

You will receive a special, Backer-exclusive VHS tape of glitch art created by Jon Springs for this Kickstarter.

We are a team of enthusiastic concept, sound, film, and game artists fascinated by Cyberpunk, discarded aesthetics, technology, and augmented reality. All members of the team have a long background with SCAD Humans vs Zombies, so we have an extremely solid understanding of how to make a LARP game. With Daemon we wanted to bring the experience of LARPs and real-life gameplay up a notch, and have been developing it for the past year.

Team lead, team programmer, producer, production designer. Led SCAD HvZ 2015 as Gameplay Coordinator before coming up with the idea for DAEMON. You can find him anywhere in a Member's Only jacket. Responsible for technical wizardry and game design direction.

Producer, film lad, general voice of reason. Team member of SCAD HvZ 2015 Gameplay Committee. When he's not on film sets or recording his Halo podcast, he's being the most collected guy in the room.

Art Director, concept artist, production designer. Responsible for many of the wicked costumes and player props you'll see throughout the game, for the general look of DAEMON, and herding the art team.

Post-Ironic Vitruvian Man. Led SCAD HvZ 2014 as Media Coordinator. Responsible for headlining the New Media gallery show, informing the general aesthetic of DAEMON, and being a wizard with anything involving VHS and Cathode Ray Tubes.

Media lead, film lad, game designer, devil's advocate. Team member of SCAD HvZ 2015 Gameplay Committee. Responsible for filming the DAEMON documentary, trailers, and anything else that needs a camera pointed at it.

Sound lead, game designer. Responsible for writing and recording the audio logs heard throughout DAEMON, as well as recording and editing sound for DAEMON's various trailers.

Concept artist, game designer. Team member of SCAD HvZ 2015 Gameplay Committee. Responsible for overall player class prop design, the idea for DAEMON's use of AR, several of DAEMON's missions.

Concept artist, game designer, graphic designer. Team member of SCAD HvZ 2015 Media Committee. Responsible for company logo design, DAEMON mission design, and general graphic design.

Bandanas - Players use bandanas to indicate that they are playing Daemon to other players, as well as follow the game rules. These also serve as personal momentos for each player, which we intend to let them keep. We need to make these ourselves.

AR Printing - Daemon's Augmented Reality is largely found outdoors, in the game environment. In order to make sure the game runs smoothly, targets are going to need to be printed nicely and sturdily enough that they don't fall apart easily due to weather or player usage.

Google Cardboard Headsets - Absolutely key to running Augmented Reality in a LARP like this, we need to purchase sturdy headsets for players who will be potentially running, jumping, tripping, and falling. We want players to be able to focus on enjoying the game, not protecting their phones.

Player Currency and Licenses - Daemon uses an ingame currency and set of "weapon licenses" for players, to ensure the game is played fairly. Since these will be trading hands a lot, we need to print these nicely in order to make sure they stand up to the abuse.

Web and App Development - This game hinges almost entirely on the Augmented Reality and our ability to keep track of players, which is what this pays for. We need to shell out for the various licenses required to develop cross platform, as well as keep the website running.

Local Advertising - We need to advertise the game locally, on campus, in order to ensure that we'll have enough students to have a good and interesting game. We also need to advertise the gallery show and put out a call for artists.

Set Dressing and Props - In order to fully immerse players, we're going to need to set dress environments and create props for players to use during the game. We'll also be using this money to help us facilitate the game by purchasing Walkie Talkies and carrying equipment to cover ground quickly.

Gallery Show - To host a gallery show, we're going to need to reserve a gallery for the event, which requires a fee, as well as purchase any equipment needed to host the show, since a lot of it is electronic.

Kickstarter Fees - Though we are small, even we need to pay the piper. Kickstarter and other monetary services take a cut of the final budget, roughly 10%. To ensure we still get the money we need set aside in our original budget, we need to set aside money for this as well.

$1,248 Total including Kickstarter fees

Risks and challenges

In creation of DAEMON, our team has already faced multiple challenges, and there are many more to come.

Our biggest challenge lies as a consequence of us pioneering Augmented Reality - a completely new mechanic to LARPs and pretty new to the world in general, which hasn't been put under this much scrutiny or heavy use before.

Developing reliable software and constant testing is done by Daniel. As a game designer, Daniel has significant experience in programming, app development, and in particular development of AR. His efforts have already yielded results that you can see featured in the DAEMON teaser trailer - all footage with AR elements were recorded on Daniel's phone live on our set.

Looking at challenges further, any game that involves dozens of players, and especially a live action game, requires careful balancing of all gameplay mechanics and a persistent analysis and preparation for all things that can go wrong. However, having designed the well-received 2015 SCAD Humans vs Zombies game, our team is very well equipped to be able to tackle the obstacles. We've been running multiple live events to test the game mechanics such as player classes, NPCs and missions to make sure our estimates are on track.

Finally, any live action game that involves dozens players running around requires scrupulous attention to the players' safety. Our team is working with the SCAD Savannah campus Residence Life officials to make sure that the event is run smoothly and without accidents. Having dealt with this challenge before in developing the 2015 SCAD HvZ, our team is taking all necessary precautions.

Kickstarter is not a store.

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DOCUMENTARY DOWNLOAD - Besides the above, we'll also be making a documentary for DAEMON that documents both the experience of playing the game, and some of the behind-the-scenes work of running it. While it'll be online for free for anyone to watch, we'll send you a DRM-free file for you to download and own.